| By Dana Goldstein - Feb 20th, 2007 at 11:38 am EST |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Tags: Academic Bill of Rights, Academic Freedom, Arizona, David Horowitz, Free Exchange on Campus, Free Speech, Law School
Thanks in part to the work of Free Exchange on Campus (a coalition in which Campus Progress participates), David Horowitz's censorship legislation, the Academic Bill of Rights, hasn't moved forward in eight of the nine statehouses in which it's been introduced in 2007. But look out in Arizona, where a state senate committee just approved a bill that could fine, suspend, or terminate professors for:
-
Endorsing, supporting or opposing any candidate for local, state or national office.
-
Endorsing, supporting or opposing any pending legislation, regulation or rule under consideration by local, state or federal agencies.
-
Endorsing, supporting or opposing any litigation in any court.
-
Advocating “one side of a social, political, or cultural issue that is a matter of partisan controversy.”
-
Hindering military recruiting on campus or endorsing the activities of those who do.
What's particularly fascistic here is the suggestion that professors can't even take a stance on "social, political, or cultural issues that are matters of partisan controversy." Could someone lose their job for suggesting gay people have the right to marry? Or that women have the right to have an abortion? Think about how this would stifle discussion in law school classrooms, for example, where questions of rights and morality are so central to interpreting the law.

Comments are closed for this post.
Our culture is not uniform -- that's what makes my discipline possible. But the blanket ban on supporting OR criticizing controversial issues makes my job impossible.